A related-art image forming apparatus includes an apparatus main body, a drawer which is provided to be removable with respect to the apparatus main body, an image carrier which is held by the drawer and on which an electrostatic latent image is formed, and a developing unit which is provided to be movable with respect to the drawer, and which supplies toner to the image carrier to make the electrostatic latent image into a visible image.
Further, the image forming apparatus further includes a contacting and spacing mechanism which is provided in the apparatus main body, and which moves the developing unit between a contacting position which is a position at which the developing unit contacts the image carrier and a spacing position which is a position at which the developing unit is spaced from the image carrier, in a state where the drawer is loaded in the apparatus main body, a driving unit which is provided in the apparatus main body, and which drives the contacting and spacing mechanism in a state where the driving unit is in a coupled state with the contacting and spacing mechanism, and a cover which covers a front face of the apparatus main body, and is opened when drawing the drawer from the apparatus main body.
The apparatus main body includes, in the upper portion of the front face side thereof, a clutch switching lever which moves forward from an initial position to release the coupled state between the driving unit and the contacting and spacing mechanism, and a lever forward-backward mechanism which engages with a handling piece provided at the cover to hold the clutch switching lever at the initial position when the cover is closed, and which separates from the handling piece to move the clutch switching lever forward when the cover is open.
Further, the apparatus main body includes, in the lower portion of the front surface side thereof, a cover interlocking-moving member which is coupled with the cover via a link mechanism (not shown), and which moves forward while interlocking with an opening operation of the cover, and a second clutch mechanism which transmits a moving operation of the cover interlocking-moving member as a driving force to the contacting and spacing mechanism, to move the developing unit to a drawn position which is a position of the developing unit with respect to the image carrier for allowing the drawer to be removed from the apparatus main body.
In this image forming apparatus, when a user opens the cover to remove the drawer from the apparatus main body, the lever forward-backward mechanism and the clutch switching lever operate via the handling piece to release the coupled state between the driving unit and the contacting and spacing mechanism, and the cover interlocking-moving member and the second clutch mechanism operate via the link mechanism to move the developing unit to the drawn position (spacing position).
However, since the related-art image forming apparatus has a configuration in which the mechanism group of “the handling piece, the lever forward-backward mechanism, and the clutch switching lever” and the mechanism group of “the link mechanism, the cover interlocking-moving member, and the second clutch mechanism” separately operate according to an opening operation of the cover, the apparatus is made complicated and the number of components is large. Further, it is necessary to secure spaces for providing these mechanism groups in the apparatus main body, which causes the problem that it is difficult to downsize the apparatus.